Three decades after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Roe v.
Wade decision, the American people remain as deeply divided over abortion
as ever. Rather than being removed from politics, abortion is as firmly
entrenched in each year's political debates as taxes and the federal budget.
Instead of waning, this political conflict is spilling over into the debate
over such cutting-edge issues as stem-cell research and human cloning.

On the one hand, those of us who disagree with Roe should be pleased
that both the ruling and the abortion policy it mandated remain in serious
dispute. Elsewhere, where the issue was decided less heavy-handedly by
democratic institutions and with somewhat greater concessions to those
who object to abortion, there is no longer much debate. This has allowed
pro-lifers to make progress that seemed unthinkable ten years ago, much
less thirty. On the other hand, since abortion has become a proxy for
so many other battles  the so-called "culture wars," partisan
disputes between Democrats and Republicans, the moderate versus conservative
debate among Republicans, presidential elections, judicial nominations
 the politics often receive more consideration than the actual issue.
First principles often take a backseat to political activism.

Several years ago, I participated in an abortion debate as a student
panelist on the pro-life side. I was discussing the importance of cultural
change to the pro-life cause when I made what I considered to be the perfectly
innocuous comment that government could not "solve" or conclusively
"end" the problem of abortion. While I did not, and do not,
disavow the importance of legal protection for unborn children, one of
the other panelists, a professional pro-life activist, practically ripped
the microphone out from in front of me and spoke up to correct me. She
thought I had made a fatal concession by suggesting that changing the
law wasn't enough.

Did I? If nothing else, it seems pretty apparent that a country where
there are as many as 1.5 million abortions a year  1.6 million in
1990  is not ready to change the law as sweepingly as pro-lifers
desire. To ratify an anti-Roe constitutional amendment, elect large
majorities of pro-life legislators or even to make a particularly strict
abortion ban practically workable would require a level of public consensus
that we do not presently have. But beyond that, an understanding of both
human nature and the limitations of government action ought to indicate
that changing hearts and minds is at least as important as changing laws,
and probably more so.

It is precisely in this area that pro-lifers have made the most progress,
even though their words and actions have sometimes lent themselves more
to alienating mainstream Americans than persuading them. Politically,
pro-life organizations and officeholders have mainly succeeded in blocking
taxpayer funding and enacting minor restrictions, such as requirements
that minors obtain parental notification or consent, with their biggest
legislative achievements  bans on partial-birth and other late-term
abortions stymied by the courts.

The public's response to the moral argument has been far more encouraging
 fewer women are having abortions, fewer doctors are providing them
and fewer students want to learn how to perform them. As National Review
senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, one of journalism's most compelling pro-life
voices, wrote in the magazine's January 27 issue, "Surveys attribute
this reluctance more to moral qualms than to fear of anti-abortion violence
or protest." Indeed, anti-abortion sentiment has generally been climbing
in polls since the mid-1990s to the point where nearly as many people
label themselves "pro-life" as "pro-choice" and even
many people who are pro-choice agree that abortion entails the unjust
taking of a human life. Minds are being changed, but more needs to be
done.

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) once famously quipped that pro-life conservatives
believe life begins at conception and ends at birth. While some act this
way, the actual logic of the position should dictate a respect for the
innate value of all members of the human species  including pregnant
women considering abortion. Pro-lifers must work to offer them viable
alternatives and a strong support network, rather than simply demand that
they alter their choices. Crisis pregnancy centers dedicated to these
tasks have proliferated; they must seek to insure they are above criticism
and genuinely focused on helping women blogger and Jewish World
Review columnist Eve Tushnet once outlined an excellent
set of characteristics hey should demonstrate. As Paul Swope noted
in a First Things article several years ago based in part on the
report "Abortion: The Least Of Three EvilsUnderstanding the
Psychological Dynamics of How Women Feel About Abortion," abortion
is often seen as an act of self-preservation and thus a necessary evil.
The new focus ought to be on people, acting through civil society, empowering
women by expanding their choices rather than on government stepping in
to limit choices.

This should not be pursued simply as a strategic move, but as an affirmative
obligation that will need to be undertaken regardless of what the government's
policy on abortion is. The inescapable fact is that elective abortions
will always take place to some extent, no matter what the law says, as
long as there is a perceived need for them. Addressing and reducing that
need ought to become as central to the pro-life mission today as politics
has been in the past. Far more needs to change than the law.